Quick Takes (18): Christmas Recap

I had all of the best intentions to post this yesterday, but my crappy internet service (Digis) decided another outage was a nice Friday present all evening.  This is the 5th outage in 2 weeks, and after I post this, I'm calling Comcast!  I hope it's ok I'm still posting these on Saturday.

--- 1 ---

The ornament.  I think I mentioned a bit ago about receiving a lovely surprise gift from an avid blog reader of mine.  She doesn't have her own blog, but we have become email buddies.  She is a dear lady-in-waiting as well, and the gift she sent was so meaningful.  It was an ornament to add to our tree.  DH and I buy ornaments for each other each year, and we also add ornaments from special trips and milestone events (our 1st year married, our Godchild, in remembrance of our 2 babies, etc.)

This is the ornament she sent us.  Isn't it precious?

And what she had written on the back is even more beautiful:

An ornament to commemorate this pregnancy. Our 1st ever pregnancy during Christmas.  And this dear lady didn't even realize that my DH collects penguin ornaments. That's what I've given him each year we've been married, and this year, he even started his own penguin tree.  Here's proof:

Is that not just a cool, divinely-inspired gift?  Thanks again, D.!

--- 2 ---

Church service.  This is the first year of the past 4 (at least) where I didn't sit through a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day service feeling sorry for myself, angry at God, or on the verge of sad tears.  It was such an amazing thing to sit through church while pregnant...pondering Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus.  I pray ladies, that many of you get to experience that in 2012!!

--- 3 ---

Surprise Skype.  My family was so surprised to see my DH and I live on video Skype.  For many in my family, this was their first experience with such technology.  Grandma, Dad, and Mom got a little chocked up and/or shed some tears.  It was so beautiful.  We got to see our newest niece born last month, and my 89 year old Grandma did great talking to us through the laptop for a good 20 minutes. I wasn't sure how she would handle it.  The big thing everyone first asked about was, "show me your belly."  Here's what they saw- the two of us still in our church clothes from that morning.

--- 4 ---

Dad.  I've been bugging my dad for a few years now to buy his own computer and learn how to navigate the internet.  My aunt (his sister) has also been encouraging him to do the same.  It would make for more communication between he and I since my mom doesn't let him use her laptop.  Well, either the Christmas Day Skype or my aunt inspired him to go out and buy an ipad this week!  My 62 year old father now has an email account, his own Skype account, and an ipad he is slowly learning to use.  I can't believe it!  My aunt has been helping him learn how to use it, because before this point, he had never used a computer in his life!  Talk about a lot to learn, but he seems to be having fun with it, if not a little bit overwhelmed.  I'm hopeful we'll be able to Skype and send pictures to him once the baby arrives since we only get to visit my family once or twice a year.

On a different note, I can't post about my dad without reference to a phone conversation I just had with him today.  My greatest fear for many years now has been that my mother would drive him to the point of suicide with all of her mental games and antics (my parents are still married, but Dad should have left years ago when mom refused to acknowledge a mental problem we think is present).  Today, for the first time ever, he mentioned she got him so worked up about an issue that he's not sure how he drove home safely and he actually thought about pulling out in front of a dump truck that was in the other lane to end all the craziness with her.  I lost it.  Full out tears on the phone with him.  I told him of the fear I've had about him for a long time (I've only ever mentioned the fear to my DH before) and a lot of other things that have been on my mind (why are you still in the marriage, what's preventing you from leaving, I know mom was married before- {he didn't know I knew this and my brothers still don't know this}.  So...where do we go from here?  I pray for my dad's well-being and feel the burden of parenting my parent.

--- 5 ---

The envelope.  After Skyping with the fam, DH and I opened all of our gifts.  We left the envelope until the end, and I almost didn't want to open it.  It had been 10 days since our ultrasound and I was getting used to the idea of not finding out the gender.  But we both decided to go ahead and open it and found a picture of the gender parts noting the sex of our child.  We both cried.  DH's instinct was correct.  From the very beginning of this pregnancy, he's been thinking the baby was a __________ (fill in with boy or girl) and while that has been what I've always dreamed of having first, it was too good to be true (I've always wanted to have both a boy and a girl, but dreamed of having a ___________ first).  Amazingly, that was also the gender of a name we had picked out already and fallen in love with.  We now have a name for both genders, just in case we get a surprise upon delivery.  Truly, it was a special way for us to find out the gender.

--- 6 ---

Time away.  Shortly after Christmas, DH and I decided to take a getaway to Boise to visit some friends there.  We also got to visit some wineries, so DH could stock up on his wine supply. Don't worry...I only did smelling and not tasting.  We had fun catching up with our friends, and since we were so close, crossed another state off of our visited list.  We had lunch in Oregon, just to say we'd been there (we're nerds, I know).  We have now been to all of the states West of the Mississippi River.

--- 7 ---

Registering.  Since we were in a big city, we decided to visit Target and Babies R Us and look at setting up a baby registry.  Each place had sent us gift cards if we started a new baby registry (hello $30 free bucks, and since we don't have either of those stores in our town, we wanted to go in person and look at what they had to offer.  I didn't fall over from shock or disbelief upon entering Babies R Us, and I didn't even cry the whole time we were in there.  We did find a cute set for the nursery and are now dreaming up ideas for what it will look like.

For the longest time, I've loved Noah's Ark things, so this nursery collection centered around this theme seen in the blanket was perfect.  We both love it, and each of the pairs of animals is 1 boy and 1 girl, so it is gender-neutral.  I'm thinking we'll paint the nursery green or yellow.

I still find it hard to believe that we're setting up a baby registry.  To anyone in the stores, we appear as a "normal" pregnant couple...maybe a little older than most, but still a normal couple setting up their registry for their first child.  So many people have asked if this is our first child, and I can't say a simple "yes" to them in response.  I've been saying, "no, this isn't our first pregnancy, it's our 3rd, but it is the 1st one to make it this far."  You should see some of the people's reactions when I say this, but I feel I owe it to our 1st two children to acknowledge their existence and to also let people know things aren't always as rosy as they may appear.

Happy New Year to all!  I guess my 2011 reflection post will be coming in 2012:-)

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